


Extra Lessons

by tastewithouttalent



Series: The Moments We Touch [6]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Consensual Violence, Cutting, Deleted Scenes, F/F, F/M, M/M, alternate endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:36:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“‘He wanted me to help you with these extra lessons.’” Extras, deleted scenes, and alternate endings to The Moments We Touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alternate Ending: Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate ending to the penultimate chapter of Nothing of the Gods, Discovery. Not in any way series-canon-compliant, but this scene could have gone two different ways and this version demanded writing.

Stein is climbing a hill on the edge of the city when Spirit catches him. He is heading to the forest and that is all Spirit needs to know; his ultimate purpose is something the weapon’s mind shies away from, and it is unimportant at the moment anyway. He must be feeling some of the inexplicable connection burning in Spirit’s mind, because he starts to turn well before he can possibly hear Spirit’s approach.

At any other time, on any other day, Spirit would consider the flash of emotion on Stein’s face as a victory, as a battle won in his incessant war on the meister’s composure and corresponding distance. But there is no room in his head for that, so when Stein takes a step backwards in an unprecedented display of fear it barely registers in Spirit’s mind. He closes the distance, keeps coming until he is well within Stein’s comfort zone, until he is well within his  _own_. The years of accumulated knowledge in his head tell him that their proximity will make Stein much more uncomfortable than he, that this is an advantage to him even though the meister’s extra height gives him the edge in sheer physical intimidation.

Besides, the expression on Stein’s face says that intimidation is the last thing on his mind right now. His body is stiff with what looks like fright, his weight rocked back on his heels like he’s going to start running at any moment, and his eyes are startlingly wide with something that appears to be panic behind his glasses. Spirit has only seen the meister look like this once before, when Stein startled back from unexpected physical contact, and then it was so brief that he barely processed the reaction, but the image has been lurking in his memory and that is  _exactly_  what Stein looks like now.

Spirit opens his mouth but there is simultaneously too much too say and nothing at all to say. For a moment his forward momentum flags and fails while he struggles for language, but then he rallies with the only possible thing he could say at this moment.

“What the FUCK, Stein?”

Stein blinks at the expletive but doesn’t move or react otherwise. Now that the initial words are out, though, Spirit is rolling down the steep incline of righteous fury and devastated trust and he is not sure that anything can stop him.

“We are  _partners_. I am supposed to be able to trust you. I  _did_  trust you, I’ve trusted you for  _years_ , even when you didn’t talk to me, even when you  _ignored_  me, even when you destroyed things just because you  _could_. I trusted you anyway, I thought I was the  _exception_ , I thought you  _cared_  about me, and all this time you’ve been  _experimenting_  on me?” He bites off the syllables, he is almost spitting every word, and his volume is rising and Stein’s eyes are going wider but he can’t slow down or regulate his volume at all. “I felt  _sorry_  for you, I wanted to  _help_  you. I felt bad for  _abandoning_  you, I felt  _guilty_  for caring about anyone else, as if you cared about  _me_  at all.”

Stein licks his lips. The motion screams uncertainty; Spirit almost doesn’t recognize the emotion because it is so bizarre to see it on Stein’s face. “Spirit --”

“Don’t you  _dare_.” Spirit is not sure he has ever been really, properly angry before, but the emotion is raging through his body now and there is no pulling it back. Part of his mind is cringing in fear, and he is fairly sure he will regret his words and his actions later, but most of him is right there with the fury, screaming into his meister’s wide-eyed fear. “I have done  _everything_  I can to help you. I have been there for you for fucking  _years_. I have cared when  _no one else did_ , and you’ve been --” He can’t say it again, can’t meet Stein’s gaze even though he knows it’s backing down to look away, and when he breaks eye contact he realizes he is crying and doesn’t know when he started.

“I have --” Stein starts again. Spirit turns back to him, steps so close that his foot comes between Stein’s and that their hips are pressed together, so close that when he angles his head up to look at Stein he can feel the meister’s too-fast breathing against his mouth, and he reaches up to grab a handful of Stein’s coat and hold him where he is.

“Did you even care  _at all_?”

Stein’s face is awash in panic and fright, but that slides away at Spirit’s words and the weapon can see the meister’s face collapse into total, agonized pain. He looks at Spirit like the older boy has just stabbed him, like he is about to cry. He takes in a breath around a sob and as close as he is Spirit can hear the tears in the sound, can see the meister’s lip tremble with barely-held emotion.

Stein’s hand comes up to shove against Spirit’s chest, the force hard enough that it sends waves of pain through the bruised cuts the meister has inflicted on him, and then his fingers tighten into a fist around the loose fabric of Spirit’s shirt and he pulls, and Spirit tips forward, just barely, just until he catches his balance, but they are  _very_  close, and the movement crushes Spirit’s mouth and teeth against Stein’s lips.

Stein sighs against him, the sound purring with the satisfaction of fulfilled anticipation, and for a moment Spirit is frozen in place by shock and unexpected pleasure and  _confusion_ , and then he remembers that he is  _angry_  and he shoves Stein away hard. The meister stumbles backwards as his fingers release Spirit’s shirt; he only barely keeps from falling.

“What --” Spirit tries to call up the rage of a moment ago, but Stein has stolen that from him, pulled his feet out from under him and destroyed his expectations and now he’s lost in the breathtaking clarity of the moment. That in and of itself is enough to lend fuel to his fast-fading ire, though. He sets his mouth in a firm line, straightens his shoulders, recenters himself over his feet. “ _What_  are you doing?”

Stein’s hand is at his mouth. His eyes are shut. His face is the closest to peace that Spirit has ever seen it, the tension of restraint gone so he looks his age for the first time the weapon has ever seen. Spirit can see him suck in a breath, can see the ragged edges to the exhale when it comes, and then the meister opens his eyes. The very motion of his eyelids is languid, slow and satisfied, and it is nothing to the expression in the green of his eyes. Stein looks at Spirit like the weapon is an object or a tool or death itself and there is nothing in his face but raw  _desire_ , the way that someone craves ownership and possession of an inanimate thing.

Spirit’s newfound rage roars in him at the implication in that expression even while his blood fires in response to it. He is moving before he has thought his actions through, coming back in to Stein’s space, seething and flushed in equal parts.

“How  _dare_  you,” he manages to get out before his hands ground themselves in Stein hair and he pulls the meister’s mouth to his. He’s not quite in control of his body, but his mouth seems to know what to do and for a minute there is just the aggression of teeth and tongue on Stein’s surrendering mouth. There is some vague idea in Spirit’s mind to reclaim his agency, to prove that  _he_  is the active party here, but the heat rising in him is rapidly outweighing all other concerns. Then he pushes too hard or bites a little too much and tears Stein’s skin and the taste of copper fills his mouth, and he pulls Stein’s head back by the hands in his hair and tries to recollect himself. But Stein bends backward, lets himself be forced away, and his hands are clinging to Spirit’s arms like he can’t stand up on his own and his neck is a smooth curve so Spirit can  _see_  the half-panicked pattern of his breath and that’s it for the weapon’s rational side. Rage and desire crush into a single sensation, impossible to distinguish, and his hands are against Stein’s waist and pulling at the meister’s hair and his mouth is on Stein’s throat and jawline and mouth and Stein’s skin tastes like tears and blood and Spirit’s vision goes hazy as his focus shatters into pure physicality.


	2. Alternate Ending: Force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate ending to the final chapter of Nothing of the Gods, Force. Companion to the alternate ending of Discovery.

Stein feels Spirit coming.

When he thinks back on this later, he doesn’t know how to explain what happened the moment before he turns to face the oncoming weapon. It’s like the sensation of someone’s eyes on his skin, not something he can quantify but which he feels like something physical anyway. When he sees Spirit’s face, the question of how he knew the older boy was approaching becomes entirely secondary to the  _fear_.

Fear is a new emotion for Stein. He hasn’t started feeling it until very recently, and even then it has been an emotional terror, the anticipated horror of impending loss. This is like the visceral fear that Spirit experiences during a fight but with none of the clinical distance that the Resonance grants to the meister. It is cold and it is crippling; the adrenaline in his veins locks Stein in place the way that it did when he nursed Spirit’s fever in Germany, but with the addition of a raw animal terror for his own survival that overtakes his body without his permission.

It is not that Spirit is particularly physically imposing; even as he closes with Stein he lacks the height to loom over the meister, and his musculature tends towards slender rather than brawny, as Stein knows intimately. But there is something in his eyes and in the set of his jaw that Stein has never seen there before. He thought he was missing some crucial component of basic animal instinct. It turns out his instinct had just never met anything bigger than it before.

His newfound fear drags his feet backward in an attempt to run, but he only makes it a step before the desire to freeze stops him cold, and then there is nothing to do but wait for Spirit to reach him.

The weapon steps far, far too close. If this were any other time Stein would be sucking in air like he was drowning, breathing in the heat radiating off the older boy, locking the memory of Spirit’s proximity into his mind for future reference, but his heart is racing and he thinks he’s probably hyperventilating with terror and there is no space left in him even to appreciate the relative excess of pale skin Spirit’s half-done shirt exposes.

And the red cuts across that skin. Understanding clicks in Stein’s mind with a sensation he is  _sure_  must be audible just before Spirit starts talking.

“What the FUCK, Stein?”

The question is rhetorical, which is for the best because Stein is just realizing that he has never really thought through a defense for when Spirit finds out what he has been doing to the weapon. Spirit talks over any response he could make and there is nothing in Stein’s head as an excuse, just the sickening horror at the knowledge that this is it, that there is no more running and no more dodging this issue, that they are going to have this argument right  _here_ , right  _now_ , and he is not ready. He is not sure that he would  _ever_  be ready for this, but this is all wrong, too soon and too fast and he is too frightened and Spirit too angry, and the weapon is yelling at him and he’s not even listening, he can’t even understand the words beyond the betrayed pain that laces the tone. The denotation doesn’t matter anyway; the emotion of them is humming in his own mind like he is a tuning fork for Spirit’s furious hurt, he doesn’t need the inadequacies of language to give him a framework when the meaning is bypassing his mind and going straight into his veins.

It is overwhelming in a way that entirely redefines the word, that outstrips previous experiences so entirely that Stein can’t recall why anything that came before was so frightening, seemed so intense, when now he can’t breathe except in time with Spirit’s half-sobbed words and his heart can’t beat without the weapon’s permission. When Spirit stops to suck in air, Stein tries to speak although he still doesn’t know what to say. He’s not certain he can handle more escalation, not sure what will happen if Spirit goes on. He thinks he might kiss his partner and he’s afraid he may hurt him, and he lost control of this situation months ago but is only now realizing the breadth of his error, the extreme miscalculation when he thought this was his doing.

“Spirit,” he starts, but the older boy cuts him off before he can continue.

“Don’t you  _dare_.” Stein has never realized before that Spirit’s eyes are always warm, that the weapon is always on the verge of forgiveness before Stein even decides on an action. It is only in the absence of that constant comfort that Stein recognizes it was there at all. “I have done  _everything_  I can to help you. I have been there for you for fucking  _years_.” Stein can’t look away from the cold rage in that blue. It is horrifying and frightening and some part of him is rising to the challenge, whether to fight or capitulate he’s not sure, and now there is pain under the rage too, a bottomless well of agony that Stein echoes back across with interest, and he really can’t breathe at all now and is a little worried he may pass out. “I have cared when  _no one else did_ , and you’ve been --”

Spirit cuts off, looks away as the misery tears its way to the surface past the top layer of frustration. Stein lost control of this, of himself and the situation and his partner, an infinitely long time ago, but he can feel  _something_  rising in his blood and he knows that there is no way to stop it now but he has to try, like the desperate attempt during a fall to stumble back to center when balance is already long gone.

“I haven’t --” he starts, and the denial is futile because of course he  _has_ , but he needs to  _explain_ , somehow, that he didn’t  _mean_  what Spirit is taking away from this, that he didn’t mean to hurt the weapon even though of course any thought makes it stunningly obvious that it would, that he has  _cared_  and  _burned_  and  _agonized_  about Spirit and that it was all a  _mistake_ , a horrible error caused by his own lost heart and fevered blood, and won’t Spirit  _forgive_  him?

But Spirit steps in closer when Stein didn’t think he could, and he seizes the front of Stein’s coat and for a wild moment Stein thinks the weapon is going to kiss him although that seems contextually impossible. Excitement and insane hope and frantic panic are smothering Stein, he can’t breathe with Spirit this close, he can’t  _think_  and he can’t  _breathe_ , and then Spirit hisses into his face, “Did you even care  _at all_?”

The panic hits the rush of affirmation that surges through him, and Stein’s throat closes up and he  _can’t_  say what he  _has_  to say, there is  _too much_ , and the pound of absolute need crushes his frozen fear but sweeps away his ability to speak as well, and there is a tremblingly long moment of agony as Stein’s head fills with feelings that his body can’t express and Spirit stares at him with the cold judgment in his eyes. He needs  _space_ , he needs to  _tell_  Spirit, and the two desires smash hard into each other and suddenly he can move again.

His hand comes up and crushes against the hot skin of Spirit’s chest, and then his fingers tighten to grip a fistful of the half-buttoned shirt and the flaring emotions in his blood pull at the muscles of his arm and tug Spirit forward to span the centimeters of distance between them.

The weapon’s mouth lands on Stein’s, and their lips are out of alignment and Spirit’s teeth hit Stein’s lower lip with bruising force, and the older boy goes utterly still with shock instead of responding, and it is perfect and thrilling and all the tension in Stein’s body and mind goes slack with blind satisfaction.

He is stumbling backward before he can process what has happened, his balance careening under him while his mind refuses to let go of the impression of Spirit’s mouth and skin and breath against his. He should open his eyes, that would help, but he can’t regain control over his body and vision is unimportant with the fading afterimages of kissing Spirit imprinted on his skin and his mind, so he lets the ground skid under him until he finds his feet and his balance again.

“What --” Spirit’s voice interrupts the echoing silence of shocked satisfaction in Stein’s head. “ _What_  are you doing?”

Stein’s awareness is carefully fitting itself back inside his skin, creeping back into his hands and face and thoughts. His fingers are pressed to his lips, forcing the texture of Spirit back into his skin as if he can hold it there indefinitely. He gasps in air that he has forgotten to breathe, lets it out of lungs that have forgotten how to operate and stutters over the process. When he opens his eyes, he isn’t ready for vision but he isn’t able to  _keep_  from looking at Spirit, and he drags his eyes against Spirit’s hair and cheekbones and lips like his gaze has a tangible presence. From the way Spirit flushes, the weapon is suffering from the same misconception.

Spirit swallows hard, red rising to his cheeks and anger turning the blue in his eyes cold and sharp, and then he is stepping forward, back into the personal space that he has already shattered. Stein would be irritated by the invasion if there were any part of him that wasn’t aching for the weapon, but there isn’t so he’s not.

“How  _dare_  you,” Spirit spits at him, but the ire in the words is critically undermined by the hands that tangle into Stein’s hair and the way his mouth crushes into the meister’s on the last word. Stein lets Spirit drag his head down, lets the fingers against his scalp guide him entirely, lets the static in his mind and the angry jealousy in his blood drown into silence beneath the flood of pleasure that suffuses his veins. Spirit is  _hurting_  him, all teeth and pressure and force, and Stein  _likes_  it. The desire in his body can’t find its own expression but it purrs in recognition at the painful pleasure that Spirit is dragging from his nerves, and Stein doesn’t even realize that Spirit has broken the skin of his lip until he recognizes the taste of blood on the weapon’s mouth. When the older boy pulls Stein back he lets himself go, and even though his body is keening for more there is a pleasure to the yielding too, a relief in giving himself over to Spirit’s direction. His hands are clutching at Spirit’s arms, trying to retain his balance and his sense of self, but gravity isn’t important anymore with Spirit’s hands on him and Spirit’s warmth suffusing him, and when the weapon closes the distance between them again with a whimper that is more than half-frustrated and all aggressive desire Stein shuts his eyes again and lets his self turn off.


	3. Alternate Ending: Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate ending to chapter five of The Person I Might Become, Confrontation. Again, not in any way series-canon-compliant, but, once again, two ways for that scene to go and this one needed writing!

Spirit goes entirely still, hands still clenched in Stein’s jacket but fury forgotten. Stein can  _see_  the rage melt out of his face, and what is left behind is a focused adult concentration that he has never seen in his weapon’s expression before. His eyes narrow, his voice drops low, and when he says “ _What_?” the word is as forboding as a single syllable can be.

Stein knows he should answer. He has been deliberately toying with Spirit, raking his emotions as thoroughly as he knows how, and that  _tone_  says that if he doesn’t answer immediately the weapon can’t be held responsible for his actions. But Spirit being angry doesn’t mean that Stein is, and while Spirit has been shaking him Stein has gone limp so he won’t act on the rising  _need_  to bridge the inches between them, and now Spirit has stopped and they are  _so close_  and Stein doubts that Spirit even  _realizes_ , that he has any idea what he’s doing to Stein’s heartrate.

He is taking his life in his hands but Stein’s never been very good at self-preservation in the face of, well, Spirit.

He moves his head first, just tips it forward so he’s not looking at the ceiling anymore, and he’s shifting in before he’s even looked at Spirit’s face because that red hair is like a magnet and there’s really not much distance to cover. Spirit’s face is still locked into professional focus when Stein’s lips meet his; Stein can feel the tension firming Spirit’s mouth into a hard line and it speaks to the weapon’s single-minded attention that it takes him as long as it does to realize what’s happening.

Of course, when he does his hands go slack on Stein’s coat, but the meister was ready for that, his body as perfectly attuned to Spirit’s as ever, and his fingers tighten against Spirit’s jacket as he takes his own weight again. Spirit rocks backward, makes a sound in the back of his throat that might be a word but Stein doesn’t hear it, just swallows it against his tongue, and then he has to shut his eyes because this close the shadows of Spirit’s eyelashes are ridiculously distracting. But then his eyes are shut and his focus shifts to tactile sensation instead of visual and if he thought Spirit’s  _eyes_  were distracting they are  _nothing_  on Spirit’s mouth. Surprise has softened the weapon’s expression, parted his lips just slightly, and he tastes like  _coffee_  and Stein can feel his breathing speeding fast and oh god Stein hasn’t breathed in several seconds, he is going lightheaded with lack of oxygen and excess of Spirit and he makes himself pull away, consciously forces his lungs to work once, twice.

He doesn’t open his eyes until his head is clear, or at least as clear as it can be under the circumstances. Spirit is staring at him in the most perfect example of shock that Stein has ever seen, entirely unaffected by any compounding emotions, and his hands are still clinging to Stein’s coat as if he has forgotten they’re there and he is blushing red, red, red.

Stein straightens his thoughts, looks at Spirit’s cheeks instead of his lips or his hair, and then answers the question.

“The Demon Sword is back.” When Spirit doesn’t speak he goes on. “It showed back up in Italy, along with another soul wavelength, probably a meister wielding it. Lord Death wants us to go out and deal with it.”

Spirit blinks. His hands tighten their hold. His mouth opens, shuts. He swallows visibly.

“What?” It’s not focused this time, but faint and lost.

“Spirit.” Spirit’s eyes flicker to Stein’s mouth and away. His blush deepens but Stein’s fairly sure  _he’s_  blushing too. “It’s in  _Italy_.”

He hates to distract the weapon but time is of the essence. It hurts a little, to watch the flush on Spirit’s cheeks drain away to panicked white, to see the blurred confusion in his eyes harden into panic, and when he says, “Maka” his voice is back to Death-Scythe focus.

Stein lets him go, releases his hold on the black jacket a moment after Spirit reclaims his own hands. He’s waited fourteen years. He can wait a little longer.


	4. Deleted Scene: Talking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deleted scene from Where I Should Be. Takes places between chapters three and four of that volume.

Marie is not the person Spirit is hoping to run into. He’s been wandering around the Academy for near an hour, thinking unformed thoughts about closets and dark corners and the taste of Stein’s mouth, and he knows perfectly well the meister is teaching a class but hope springs eternal and often illogical, and the  _possibility_  remains as long as he doesn’t head back to his apartment yet. All the classes are full of students, which leaves the hallways empty and perfect for pining, and when Spirit comes around a corner and sees Marie it takes him a minute to process the scene.

“Oh,” he says first, “Hey Marie.” His mind kicks into overdrive, scrambling for an invented appointment, a lunch date, a Death Scythe meeting, anything to avoid the awkwardness of making small talk while avoiding the ‘so our mutual meister was in love with me the whole time he was partners with you and you were in love with him and now I’m sleeping with him’ elephant in the room.

Then he sees her face, the blank way she’s staring into the distance, and empathy entirely overrides his personal discomfort with the situation so for a minute she’s just Marie and he’s just Spirit and he is  _worried_.

“Marie.” He steps in but she doesn’t react, just keeps gazing off into the distance. She’s biting her lip too, he can see now, tearing at it with her teeth absently. “Marie, you okay?”

She jumps then, like she’s only just hearing him, and turns to stare at him with no sign of recognition for a minute. Then she steps back, brushes her hair behind her ear with one hand, and tries to pull a smile up. She hasn’t let go of her lip yet, so it tugs strangely before it comes, and even then it doesn’t reach her eye at all. “Oh. Hey Spirit!”

Her voice is too high and too bubbly, like she’s doing an impression of herself, and her uncovered eye isn’t quite focused on Spirit’s face.

“Hey Marie,” Spirit repeats himself. “Are -- you okay?”

“Of course I’m okay, why wouldn’t I be okay?” She brushes her hair back behind her ear again, twists her hands together in front of her. “I’m  _fine_.”

“You just -- look a little stressed.”

“Nope!” She shakes her head and her hair falls free in front of her face again. “I’m  _just_  fine, I --”

She stops. Her forced smile drops into a trembling lower lip and she twists her hands together so hard Spirit cringes in sympathetic pain. Then she looks down at the same, and when she speaks again her voice is low and so quiet Spirit can barely hear her.

“Actually. You know how I moved into my own place a week ago?”

Spirit does. “Yes?”

“Uh. I finished packing up the last of my stuff from Azusa’s yesterday to take over.”

Marie sounds like she’s confessing to a murder, from how hesitant her words are coming. Spirit can feel his face twisting in confusion. “Good?”

“Before I left, just as I was finishing, I --” She takes a breath like she’s about to plunge underwater and says the next sentence fast, like it’s all one word. “Azusa kissed me.”

Spirit’s eyebrows go up to his hairline and he rocks back on his heels like the shock is a physical blow. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.” Marie is staring down at her hands so her face in hidden behind her hair and she sounds a little like she’s on the verge of tears. “I don’t know what to do, I mean I had no idea she -- felt that way. Did you?”

“I --” Spirit is about to say ‘had no idea,’ but a lot of conversations are making a lot more sense in retrospect, with this piece of information. “Probably should have guessed, actually. That -- wow, that --”

“Yeah,” Marie says quietly, like he’s actually said something worthwhile. “I just don’t know what to  _do_  now, and no one  _knew_  and I can’t  _talk_  to her and I -- how did I not  _realize_?”

“She probably didn’t want you to know,” Spirit says in his best attempt at soothing. When he steps forward Marie doesn’t move away, and when he wraps his arms around her shoulders she hugs him back. It’s weird to have physical contact be so easy. Sometimes Spirit forgets that not everyone is Stein, where every touch is loaded with meaning, or Maka, who shies back like he’s infected with some horrible disease. Marie just leans into the hug, sighs against his shirt, and he can feel some of the tension bleed out from her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she says against his shirt. “I just feel like everything has gotten really complicated in the last few weeks and I don’t really have anyone to talk to. About anything.”

Spirit laughs. “Yeah, I can understand that. Funny how the Kishin was defeated and everything got  _more_  complicated.”

Marie laughs too, and this sounds genuine like her earlier assumed cheer wasn’t. “Yeah.” She sighs and steps back before running a hand through her hair in a doomed attempt to control it. “Sorry for telling you all that. I really don’t have anyone else to talk to. Except Stein, I guess, but that would be super weird for me even if he wouldn’t mind.”

“Yeah, that -- I can see how that would be awkward. Wow. I am really sorry, that -- that sucks.”

“Yeah,” Marie agrees, but when she smiles it looks a little more sincere. “Thanks, Spirit.”

“No problem.”

Marie turns to go and Spirit speaks before he can call it back. “Hey, Marie.” She stops and glances back over her shoulder. “I, uh -- I’m no Azusa, but if you need someone to talk to just say the word.” He shrugs. “I’m a pretty good listener.”

When Marie smiles it’s like all the lights in the room get a little bit brighter. “I will. Thanks.” She pushes at her hair again, looks away from Spirit’s face. “Good luck. With Stein, I mean. I think -- I think you’re really good for him.”

“Oh.” Spirit’s face goes hot and he can’t control the half-shy half-pleased smile that curves his mouth. “Uh. Thanks.”

The other weapon is still smiling, the brightness reaching the gold in her eye this time when she glances back. “You’re welcome.”


	5. Deleted Scene: Drunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deleted scene from Where I Should Be. Takes place between chapters four and five.

It is not that coming home to an empty house is entirely unprecedented. After all, Spirit has the habits from years of living alone to fall back on. It’s just that he’s expecting Stein at the lab when he gets there, and it is a little strange to come in the door to the utter silence of an empty building.

“Stein?” Spirit calls, just for good measure, but he doesn’t wait for any sort of an answer. The lab is half-lit as usual, but when he comes down the hallway to the kitchen there’s a note dropped in the middle of the counter, and when he picks it up it just says “At Azusa’s with whiskey” in Stein’s sharp-edged handwriting.

“Huh,” Spirit says aloud. He hadn’t really expected Stein to take his recommendation so seriously when he mentioned the conversation he had with Marie earlier in the day, hadn’t even realized Stein was really  _listening_. The consideration is kind of weirdly charming; Spirit can’t remember Stein ever showing any sort of deliberate empathy for anyone other than himself. Then he realizes he’s smiling stupidly at a note, and immediately after realizes the implications of the last part of the explanation.

“Did he --” Spirit comes around the counter to open the door to the unofficial alcohol cabinet and breathes a sigh of relief when his scotch, at least, is intact. “Oh good.”

He amuses himself for a few hours; he doesn’t know when exactly Stein left, and he might reasonably spend the early part of the evening at Azusa’s. But then the sun is fully set, and it is not that Spirit thinks Stein can’t take care of himself but he is lonely and faintly worried, because how on  _earth_  are Stein and Azusa not  _killing_  each other, Azusa likes Stein even less than she likes  _Spirit_ , and he doesn’t last fifteen minutes after that before he is pulling his coat back on and going out in search of his meister.

The apartment is lit up when he gets there, but there is no answer when he knocks or rings the doorbell, even on a second and third attempt, and he can  _hear_  voices inside. Eventually he tries the door, which turns out to be unlocked, and with the door open the voices turn out to be primarily laughter.

Giggles, actually. Spirit is getting  _really_  worried now because that  _can’t_  be Azusa, has someone broken into her  _house_?

“Hello?” he calls, stalled in the front door.

“Spirit!”

That  _is_  Stein’s voice, Spirit would know it  _anywhere_ , but it is  _high_  and  _cheerful_  and is he  _slurring_?

“Stein?” Spirit comes in fully, pushes the door shut behind him before tentatively approaching. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fi-ine.”

“We’re  _both_  fine,” another voice chimes in, and Spirit has to come around the corner to believe that is  _Azusa_. Then he sees the crossbow and his meister and has to just...stop, stop and blink and wait until he’s sure he’s not hallucinating.

Stein is on the  _floor_ , stretched out so he is taking up the entire available floor space in Azusa’s dining room, a half-empty bottle of whiskey upright in one hand and the other stretched out to the side. He is blinking at the ceiling through his glasses, but at least he has  _kept_  his. Azusa is also on the floor, perpendicular to the meister, with her  _head_  on his  _stomach_ , and her glasses are gone and the buttons on her outer shirt are only half-done. Her hair is as ruffled as Spirit has ever seen it, and as he watches she brings a hand up to drag through it.

“Hiya Spirit,” she manages. She’s  _never_  called him anything but Death Scythe that he’s heard. “We’re bemoaning the obliviousness of weapons. And our own stupidity in waiting for them.”

“ _Your_  stupidity,” Stein clarifies. “It worked out  _really_  well for me.”

Spirit can feel his mouth hanging open but he can’t close it, feels like he might be about to burst into laughter or drop bonelessly to the floor in shock. “Are you two  _drunk_?”

“Yep,” Azusa chirps. “On your whiskey. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Yeah, I saw that.”

Stein tips his head to smile at Spirit, and the scythe makes a mental note to get Stein drunk more  _often_  if he’s going to look at him like that. “ _Really_  well,” he says to himself, and Azusa groans.

“Not for  _me_. At least I got a  _friend_  out of it. Not anymore.  _Why_  did I kiss her, I ruined  _everything_.” She casts her arm dramatically over her face and Spirit  _does_  laugh before he can help himself, snorts and claps his hand over his mouth.

Then he takes in the lack of liquid in the bottle and the state of the two most composed people he has ever known, and his eyebrows go up to his hairline.

“Oh my god. Did you drink  _all_  of that  _alone_?”

“Yep,” Azusa says from behind her arm. Stein is squinting at the light overhead like it holds the secrets to the universe and doesn’t answer, but Azusa’s affirmative is enough.

“You are both going to  _die_ , my god,” Spirit manages. “I’m going to call an  _ambulance_.”

“No.”

Stein’s voice is perfectly clear as he holds up a hand to stop Spirit. The scythe stops in his tracks -- Stein  _sounded_  rational just then, maybe he’s not as drunk as he seems. The room hangs in breathless anticipation for a moment.

“I’m a  _doctor_.”

Azusa dissolves into giggles, curls sideways on herself, and Stein starts to laugh too, his whole face falling into amusement. Spirit stares at the two of them for a moment without moving. Then he throws his hands in the air and pivots to leave.

“ _Fine_. If you die you  _deserve_  it for that.” He storms down the hall to the front door, very nearly leaves, but pauses with the door open.

“Don’t die!” he shouts down the hallway.

“We won’t!” Stein calls back.

Spirit waits until he’s outside the apartment to collapse into hysterical laughter.


	6. Extra Scene: Expose

Maka throws the apartment door open so hard it bounces back from the wall and would hit her in the face if she didn’t catch the handle as it comes back. The impact of the door against the wall and the handle against her palm helps take off the leading edge of her frustration. A little.

“ _Soul_!” Her voice has gone shrill as it always does when she is overemotional. She hates it but there is no way she can modulate it, not  _now_ , not when she has  _this_  news. “Soul, where  _are_  you?”

“I’m in here, Maka.” The weapon’s voice comes from the living room. Maka throws the front door shut -- it slams satisfyingly into place -- and storms around the corner. Soul is lying on the couch watching TV; he tips his head back to look at her upside-down as she rounds the corner. “What’s got you all worked up?”

“You will  _never_  believe what Papa just told me.” That high whine is still there, but it’s hard to yell at Soul when he sounds so calm, and the steady attention in his eyes helps calm her. “You know he hasn’t been going to ChupaCabra’s recently.”

“Sure. Is that why you’re upset? I thought you’d be happy.”

Maka throws her hands in the air. “I  _am_! I  _was_! Do you know  _why_  he hasn’t been going?” She crosses her arms and goes on before Soul has a chance to answer. “He’s seeing someone.  _Seriously_.”

“That makes sense.”

Soul is nothing like as surprised as he should be. Maka sighs. “Guess  _who_  he’s seeing.”

“Professor Stein.”

Maka’s mouth drops open. She makes no effort to close it. Her attention is tied up trying to process what Soul has said in conjunction with how calm he still looks. “ _What_? How did you  _know_?” He  _must_  have known, there is no  _way_  he would have randomly guessed correctly. “Did Papa tell  _you_  before he told me?”

“Of course not.” Soul blinks up at her, voice the same lazy drawl as always. “Your old man hates me, you know that.”

“Did Professor  _Stein_  tell you?”

“Why would he?”

“Then how did you  _know_?” She sounds petulant, but she was expecting at  _least_  the satisfaction of Soul’s surprise to offset her own shock and this lack of reaction is  _extremely_  frustrating.

Soul laughs and looks back at the TV. “It’s been totally obvious this whole time.”

Maka growls in frustration and stomps to the TV to turn off the power. When she turns to face Soul he is sitting up, starting to protest, but she cuts him off. “No it  _hasn’t_ , what are you  _talking_  about?”

“Did you really not see it? Stein’s basically been pining for your dad since he started teaching at the Academy. I’m not sure how long it’s been reciprocated but it’s been a while. I’m actually surprised it took them this long to put things together.”

Maka’s legs can’t hold her weight. She drops to the floor, still staring at Soul. Her weapon takes in her continuing confusion, sighs, and goes on. His tone implies that he is explaining that the sky is blue.

“Stein went all dreamy about your dad that very first time we fought him, don’t you remember? And they were both making eyes at each other at the anniversary party.” He shrugs. “It’s been right there this whole time. You didn’t notice  _anything_?”

Maka is still gaping at him, frustration giving way to total confusion. Soul laughs, leans back into the couch. “You really are oblivious. Did your old man have to  _tell_  you?”

Maka looks away and grimaces. “Just because  _you’re_  so observant doesn’t make  _me_  oblivious.”

“Dude, even Black*Star knew.”

“ _What_?”

“Yeah. He was pretty late to pick up on the details, after Tsubaki and Kid and the Thompsons, but I think Kid had an inside line on the situation. Lord Death’s been pretty enthusiastic about the two of them since Stein came back. Guess it’s kind of like a soap opera for him, which brings up some creepy implications but --”

“Why didn’t anyone  _tell_  me?”

Soul sighs. “We thought you  _knew_  and didn’t want to talk about it. You always say you hate your dad, Maka, it’s not a particularly good conversational topic with you.”

“But...Papa was married to Mama, doesn’t he like  _girls_?”

Soul shrugs again. “Why can’t he like both? It’s kind of a silly distinction anyway.” He sounds like he is on the verge of laughter.

“But!” She’s wailing now, reaching for straws, but she can’t stop the whine of her own voice. “But Professor Stein should have better  _taste_!”

Soul does laugh then, genuine amusement bubbling up his throat. “Just because  _you’ve_  decided you hate your dad doesn’t mean everyone else does. They were partners when they were kids, you know how that usually turns out.” He looks away from her, lies back down to watch the ceiling. “And I know you won’t like to hear this, but your dad’s pretty hot for a guy.”

“ _What_.”

“I told you you wouldn’t like to hear it.” Soul glances at her, looks away. “Not  _my_  type, sure, but he’s pretty clearly to Professor Stein’s taste. I’ve never seen the Professor look at anyone the way he looks at your dad.”

Maka reaches for words, finds none, settles for whimpering. Soul smiles up at the ceiling without turning her way. “Sorry we didn’t mention it. I think everyone thought you just didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Have you all been gossiping about my  _dad_  and  _Professor Stein_?” It’s not angry, just lost and confused.

Soul shrugs one-shouldered, smirks at the ceiling. “Not  _always_ , but it  _is_  kind of cute.” he looks at her sideways again. “You really are totally blind if you didn’t see anything.”

“Shut up,” Maka mumbles. She can feel herself blushing, she  _hates_  blushing in front of Soul.

Her partner goes on. “I’m a little relieved, though. I thought you just weren’t interested in me, but if you missed this maybe you just haven’t noticed.”

Maka’s eyebrows draw down over her eyes as she tries to parse this piece of nonsense. “Huh?”

Soul glances at her again, looks away as fast. When he speaks again he is half-smiling and there is a hint of color under his tanned skin. “Lucky me, I guess.”

He swings sideways and up to his feet, slouching back as he looks down at her. “You know now, at least. Try to be happy for them. Sounds like it’s been pretty good for your dad, if he’s stopped going to that club.”

“Wait. Don’t change the subject, what were you talking about?”

“Your dad and his  _boyfriend_.”

Maka flushes with embarrassment. “Don’t  _call_  him that!”

“Why not?” Soul is grinning now, all sharp teeth  and lopsided smile in the way that brings all the blood rushing to the surface of Maka’s skin. “That’s what they  _are_. I guess I could call him  _Stein’s_  boyfriend if you’d rather.”

Maka groans in frustration, gets to her feet and storms into her bedroom where she can shut out Soul’s smirk and laugh behind the door. She doesn’t think about what he had said or how he dodged her question until the door is shut, and by then she can’t go back out to demand an answer.


	7. Extra Scene: Darkness

Spirit doesn’t hear Stein coming at all. Part of that is undoubtedly the buzz of voices from the students filling the halls around him and part of it is that he’s entirely lost in his own thoughts, but mostly it is that the meister comes up behind him too  _fast_  for Spirit to have time to notice, much less react, before a hand is closing over his shoulder and Stein is hissing, “Come with me,” in his ear.

Not that the weapon is complaining. He jumps at the unexpected contact but recognizes the touch before Stein even speaks, and just at present he is willing to drop almost anything to obey. The meister walks fast so Spirit is almost running to keep up, weaving in and out of students like they are static obstructions instead of moving ones, and then they round a corner into a hallway that is briefly empty. Stein pulls open a door, turns back to grab the front of Spirit’s shirt, and half-pulls, half-throws him into the darkened space.

It’s exactly as tiny as Spirit expects, almost pitch black as Stein shuts the door on them, and before he has a chance to laugh or tease Stein for pulling him into a literal  _closet_  the meister’s mouth comes against his. In the dark it’s startling, with no visuals to offer warning of the contact, and Spirit gasps in surprise before he’s kissing back, hands groping blindly as he tries to step forward to angle himself closer to the meister.

“Be  _quiet_ ,” Stein murmurs against his lips, “ _Anyone_  could be walking by,” and the idea of  _Maka_  walking in on them is so horrifying that it cuts off the whimper of satisfaction in Spirit’s throat before it begins. He goes entirely silent but for the speeding hiss of his breath, and then his fingers find the collar of Stein’s coat and the soft texture of hair and he pulls and cuts off Stein’s words by expedient of lips and tongue.

It’s strange in the dark; even if Spirit opens his eyes he can’t see anything. He feels blind, half-panicked from the lack of a sense and half-thrilled because he never noticed how  _loud_  breathing is before, the way he can hear Stein smile when the meister laughs under his breath. The meister smells like smoke and tastes like nicotine, like he’s a secondhand source of Spirit’s long-ago addiction, and Spirit’s skin is alight with sensation, not just the usual tingle of adrenaline from the contact along his fingertips but down his whole body, he can feel Stein shift his weight even through both layers of their clothing, and when the meister’s fingers come up under Spirit’s hair he almost whimpers at the sensation before he remembers and catches the sound back.

Stein is breathing fast against Spirit’s mouth and so close that Spirit can feel his hair catching on the edge of the meister’s glasses, and the meister’s hands are  _everywhere_ , in Spirit’s hair and just inside his collar and hard at his hip, under his coat and over his shirt and reaching for purchase at his waistband.

“Spirit,” Stein says aloud, and Spirit would call him out for talking, aren’t they supposed to be  _quiet_ , but his voice is so low the weapon isn’t sure he’s quite hearing it as much as feeling the vibrations in the air. “You wear too much clothing.”

Spirit exhales hard in a near-silent laugh. “You dragged me into a  _closet_ , Stein, only  _imagine_  how much worse it would be if I wore  _less_.”

“Mmm,” Stein hums, very soft against Spirit’s ear, so the weapon is shivering even before the meister’s fingers tug his shirt free and come up to trace over the skin of his chest. “ _Imagine_.” His hand comes around to press flat into the curve of Spirit’s spine and the weapon has to bite his lip to stay quiet.

They both go silent for a moment, Stein’s hands sliding over Spirit’s skin and into his hair while Spirit kisses whatever part of Stein’s face comes closest and slips his fingers along the back of the meister’s neck until he can feel the younger man tremble and inhale shaky and too-fast. Then Stein lets Spirit’s hair go, and for a moment the weapon is sure he’s going to step back and they’ll carry on with their day like nothing untoward has happened at all.

It’s just as he’s trying to calm his breathing in anticipation of this that Stein’s hand brushes over the front of his slacks, and the contact is so unexpected that he groans aloud before he can stop himself.

“Fuck,” Stein hisses. The hand on Spirit’s back pulls away, comes up to cover his mouth instead as Stein pushes him back against the wall. They both go entirely silent listening for any sign of response; Spirit’s heart is racing with adrenaline from arousal and panic both, not least because Stein has him  _pinned_  to a  _wall_. Then he realizes that the meister is still working on getting his pants open while he listens, and he chokes on a laugh that is tense with nerves and high with pleasure.

Spirit can feel when Stein relaxes against him, takes it has his cue that no one heard or at least no one reacted to his slip. The meister shifts his hand to the side of the weapon’s neck instead, leans in to breathe into Spirit’s ear, “Be  _quiet_.”

“What are you  _doing_?” Spirit offers back, just as quiet though his voice is shaking significantly more than Stein’s.

Stein laughs very, very softly. The exhale brushes against Spirit’s hair before the meister lays his cheek flat against the weapon’s, brings his mouth so close his lips brush Spirit’s ear, and murmurs, “What do you  _think_  I’m doing?”as he slides his hand down the opened front of Spirit’s slacks.

Spirit doesn’t answer, primarily because he’s holding his breath to avoid any accidental vocalization, and after a moment Stein laughs again.

“Don’t make a sound,” he says, closing his fingers around the weapon’s cock. “Cover your mouth if you have to.”

Spirit whines, very high and very soft, and does as Stein suggests even before the meister moves away to kneel in front of him. Spirit’s eyes are wide although there’s nothing to see, staring into the darkness like it will illuminate how exactly he ended up in a closet at the Academy with Stein about to go down on him in the middle of the school day. The danger of getting caught is mostly embarrassment -- there wouldn’t be much consequence besides scarring some poor student and an  _extremely_  awkward conversation with Lord Death -- but it’s still enough motivation to keep Spirit desperate for silence and enough threat of danger to fill his veins with adrenaline indistinguishable from excitement.

Stein’s fingers are leaving paths of heat everywhere they go, shifting gently against skin like he’s patterning out Spirit’s body in his mind rather than actually trying to hold onto him or elicit a reaction. Not that he’s failing to get a reaction anyway, maybe more so than if his actions were more deliberate. Spirit has to shut his eyes for the illusion of attention it gives him, even though it’s too dark to see, and he is just in the middle of a carefully slow inhale when Stein’s mouth slides warm and wet around his cock.

That’s the hardest moment yet, with an appreciative moan demanding freedom, but Spirit jerks and chokes and stays quiet, although his free hand comes down into Stein’s hair and grips hard into a fist. He feels Stein laugh against him, and then the meister does something with his tongue that demands all Spirit’s self-restraint again, and that’s it for any sort of reasonable attention to anything beyond isolated moments.

Stein is very quiet, perfectly silent but for the faint wet sound of lips on skin, and even though Spirit’s own breathing is loud enough to drown out the peripheral noises they feel  _incredibly_  loud and unmistakable as anything other than exactly what they are. This hallway is less used than the main ones but every minute or so there’s the sound of footsteps, or occasionally a half-heard conversation, and Spirit’s skin is prickling with fright and arousal and they are entirely tangled at this point, one feeding into the other until he stops  _caring_  about the possibility of someone finding them, leaving just the buzz under his skin making his hands shake.

Then Stein braces his hands on Spirit’s hips and comes in deeper so there’s just heat and damp and the feel of Stein’s tongue all across Spirit’s cock, and Spirit has to bite down on his hand to keep from groaning. His knees won’t support him, he has to lean back so the wall is taking most of his weight, and Stein keeps  _going_ , moving his head so there’s friction as well as everything else, and if Spirit could  _see_  him he’s pretty sure he’d have come already, and even as it is his mind is offering up perfectly clear images and his legs are shaking and he’s not going to last much longer and he’s not sure how he’s going to stay quiet.

Stein’s fingers grip harder, digging into Spirit’s skin, and the meister licks all along Spirit’s cock again before closing his mouth around the weapon once more, and Spirit can feel the tension curling hot and inevitable at his spine. He shuts his eyes, and brings the hand in Stein’s hair up to cover his mouth atop the first, and thinks ‘quiet quiet quiet’ over and over as the flush of pleasure rushes towards him.

He doesn’t remember what he does, if he manages to stay quiet when he actually comes; for a minute there’s no self-awareness at all, just the burst of pleasure jolting through his veins like fire and leaving satisfaction in its wake. When he drifts back into awareness his hands are tingling and he can’t stand up on his own and Stein is running his tongue across Spirit’s cock so slowly that Spirit’s sure it must look entirely obscene if he could only see it. Then the meister gets to his feet, pulls himself up by his hold on Spirit’s hips, and leans in to kiss the weapon as Spirit reaches out to pull him close.. He tastes like come now, salt and bitter in place of the cigarette smoke from before, and Spirit is lost enough in the residual aftershocks of pleasure and the taste of Stein’s mouth that he doesn’t realize Stein is doing his pants back up until the meister reaches for the edge of his shirt.

“Thanks,” he manages against Stein’s mouth.

“You’re welcome,” the meister responds. His fingers linger against Spirit’s skin as he tucks the trailing edges back into the top of the black slacks. “You’ve got to look presentable, after all.”

“Not like I’ve been pulled into a closet for a blow job in the middle of the school day, you mean.”

Stein laughs, that soft exhale against Spirit’s ear again. “That is what I mean.”

“How presentable do  _you_  have to look, exactly?” Spirit asks, sliding his fingers under the edge of Stein’s shirt.

The meister chokes on his inhale and his fingers spasm hard against Spirit’s waist for a minute before he swallows and answers. “I have to teach. Unfortunately.” His mouth catches the edge of Spirit’s jaw. “Come over tonight after you’re done with work.”

“Okay,” Spirit says, like there was any question of his agreement. Stein smiles against his skin, then pulls back. He pauses for a moment, waiting for footsteps outside to die down.

“We’re clear,” he murmurs as he pulls the door open. The light in the hallway is blinding after the darkness; Spirit blinks hard to clear his eyes, so by the time he can see again Stein is standing in the hall looking back at him with amusement behind his glasses. Spirit steps out and Stein shuts the door, and except for Stein’s smirk and Spirit’s lingering flush they look as utterly professional as if they just happened to run into each other.

“I’ll head to my class,” Stein says aloud like he’s picking up the thread of a conversation. “I’ll see you around, Spirit.”

“Yeah,” Spirit manages coherently. “Sounds good.”

Stein grins and turns away, and it takes Spirit several minutes of standing in the hallway before he can remember what he is supposed to be doing.


	8. Extra Scene: Switch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Rowen_Berendt upon request:

“Hey Stein.”

Spirit’s words are muffled against skin -- after a few weeks of complaining he took matters into his own hands, and now it’s something of a race when they get home, to see who can undress the other faster. Today Spirit is winning, or Stein is letting him win -- it’s hard to tell which, just at the moment, and harder to care. There is red hair under his fingers and lips against his waist, and when he shuts his eyes as he is doing right now it is hard to differentiate between Spirit and himself. It’s better than Stein imagined it could be, more than he ever hoped for, like breathing when he’s been drowning all his life, like waking when he’s been half-asleep.

His thoughts are necessarily distracted when he answers, but his voice is clear even if it has the tender softness he only ever has, has only ever had, for Spirit. “What is it?”

“I --” Spirit starts, pauses, goes silent for a moment in favor of tracing a path over Stein’s skin with his tongue. Stein sighs, leans back into the wall he’s leaning against, and lets Spirit stall until he can feel the weapon go taut with nerves again.

“What is it, Spirit?” he says again, and this time he opens his eyes and looks down. Spirit isn’t looking at him, has one hand against Stein’s skin under his open shirt and one on his hip, holding him steady. Stein can’t see his eyes, can’t see the stress in his face for the angle and the cover of hair in front of his features, but he can feel the increased pace of Spirit’s breathing and the tightness in his fingers that has nothing to do with arousal.

“I want to...experiment,” Spirit manages, tipping his head forward so his forehead lands on Stein’s skin. Stein strokes affection into his hair and smiles even though Spirit can’t see him.

“Okay.”

Spirit laughs. The warmth of his breath against Stein’s pants makes the meister shiver, makes his hands tremble against Spirit’s head.

“You don’t even know what I want to do yet.”

Stein shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want,” Spirit repeats. “I really have you wrapped around my finger, don’t I?”

The words are teasing. Stein’s voice is perfectly level and perfectly sincere when he says, “Yes, you do,” and Spirit looks up with wide startled eyes. Stein is still smiling, and after a moment Spirit smiles back.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this, you know.” He gets to his feet, loops his arms around Stein’s shoulders and drags his fingers against the back of the meister’s neck.

“That’s for the best,” Stein says, coming in so he’s speaking against Spirit’s mouth. “It saves me from being  _entirely_  taken advantage of.”

Spirit laughs, and covers the last of the distance, and for a minute Stein’s focus melts into just sensation, pulling fingers at his hair and shifting lips on his and catching teeth against his skin. Then Spirit steps back, and that tension is back, and he says, “I want to be on top.”

“Okay.” Stein says, waits for more, but the worry in Spirit’s shoulders disappears with the agreement and there’s nothing else but relief in the weapon’s blue eyes now. “Is that all?”

Spirit rolls his eyes. “No, I’d like to tie you down and take one of your scalpels to you as well. Yes, that’s all, isn’t that  _enough_?”

“Sounds like fun,” Stein says, and because he can’t avoid temptation, “The cutting would be fun too.”

Spirit’s eyebrows jerk up and Stein laughs and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Maybe not today, though.”

“Don’t  _tease_  me,” Spirit pouts, but the effect is spoiled by the smile lurking under his words. He pulls Stein in by his hold around the meister’s neck and Stein goes, more than willing to be where Spirit wants him, particularly when that “where” is closer than he is now.

They both stumble backwards, arms and legs and mouths tangling together until Stein hits the edge of the bed and lets himself fall, taking Spirit down with him. Spirit gasps at the shift in orientation but recovers in seconds, so when Stein slides backward Spirit follows until the meister is stretched out in the middle of the bed with his weapon over him, Spirit trailing his fingers down across the now-familiar routes of scars and stitches under Stein’s open shirt. When Spirit shifts his mouth from Stein’s lips to the curve of his neck, Stein hums and tips his head and says, “You know, you’ll need to be wearing a lot less.” His fingers catch at buttons, start to work their way up without bothering yet with undoing the black tie holding the collar shut. “Probably.”

“Mmm.” Spirit hums against his skin, but he shifts one hand to the knot at his throat to pull the tie free with no concern for elegance. The motion is anyway, his fingers catching at the fabric and pulling with the ease of practice so his wrist curls away, and Stein watches the movement and thinks it might be worth the loss of contact from that particular hand. Then the tie is free, drops under them and is forgotten, and the buttons are undone and Spirit is wiggling free of his shirt and Stein sits up to meet him, so when Spirit’s fingers slide over his shoulders the grey cloth of his own shirt falls away and there’s just skin and heat and scars on scars for a moment. But Spirit’s never been particularly patient, and after a handful of breaths ruffling against Stein’s hair his fingers are at the waist of the meister’s pants, grace traded in for desperate fumbling, and Stein would tease him if he weren’t so loath to distract the weapon from his current focus.

“Stein, you’ll have to help me,” Spirit is saying as he gets Stein’s jeans free and starts to pull them off. “I don’t know what I’m doing at all with this.”

“Don’t you have enough experience yet?” Stein asks, grinning up at Spirit as the weapon’s fingers dip below the waistband of his boxers. Then there’s friction against his cock, the slide of heat on heat, and Stein groans and shuts his eyes and loses track of his sentence entirely.

“Not in this direction,” Spirit is saying, but his fingers are curled around Stein’s cock and drawing up and Stein makes an uncontrolled sound back in his throat without answering properly. “I was somewhat distracted previously.”

“Ah, well,” Stein manages, although Spirit is still sliding sensation over him and he can’t control both his voice and the involuntary rise of his hips so he gives up on the latter. “I can teach you.” He’s not sure he can, actually, isn’t sure he can maintain the mental attention this will require, but he’d say anything right now to get Spirit to  _try_ , at least.

“Oh good,” Spirit says, and Stein can hear the smile in his voice without even looking at him. He lets his grip go, and Stein sighs in disappointment, but then he’s pulling the last of Stein’s clothes free so the meister lifts his hips to assist and then there’s just himself and the bed and Spirit looking down at him like he’s thinking about maybe crying, the way he does sometimes.

Stein reaches up to brush his fingers against the ends of Spirit’s hair and smiles, and Spirit smiles back, like he always does, as if he’s a mirror reflecting back Stein’s current state. His eyes are still enormous and liquid but they don’t look panicked anymore, and that’s all Stein really needs.

“You’ll want to take off your pants too,” he observes without moving. “Probably.”

Spirit laughs at that, as he was meant to, and does a much faster job of getting his own clothes off than he did of Stein’s. Stein takes advantage of Spirit’s distraction to appreciate the way the belt sits on his waist, the warm color of his skin against the black, and best of all the fall of the fabric as he steps out of it and climbs back onto the bed. Stein can’t keep his hands to himself and there doesn’t seem much point to trying, so he lets his fingers trace across Spirit’s chest and along the dip of his spine as he speaks and tries to avoid getting distracted by the catches in Spirit’s breathing at his touch.

“You’ll need the lube. It’s in the drawer on the left side of the bed.” He points, for good measure, waits until Spirit’s eyes follow the motion of his hand before he replaces it against the weapon’s skin. “It doesn’t take a lot but you will want to make sure your fingers are coated. Start with just one, slowly. I’ll let you know from there.”

“Oh-okay.” Spirit manages. He sounds terrified, Stein can feel him trembling, but he can feel the weapon’s cock hard against his hip too so he’s not  _that_  scared. Stein pulls him down to kiss him again, just for good measure, and murmurs, “Ready when you are,” against his ear.

He can hear Spirit swallow, can feel his shiver of anticipation, and then the older man wiggles sideways for the drawer in a way that pulls against Stein’s own erection and makes the meister gasp. Spirit laughs, amused and panicked at once, and then goes still for a moment while he manages the drawer and the bottle. When he comes back, his eyes are wide with nerves and dark with excitement, and Stein watches the movement of his throat when he swallows.

“Okay,” he says again. One hand comes under Stein’s thigh, and Stein can feel Spirit’s trembling in the contact of his fingers. “Just one, right?”

“And slowly,” Stein says. His voice sounds calm. He’s distantly impressed with himself.

Spirit’s fingers are cold, chilled by the slippery liquid until even the weapon’s usual heat is subsumed, and this hand is shaking as badly as the other, writing fright into every motion of his body, but the pressure behind his hand speaks to his determination. There’s resistance for a moment; then the lubrication and the push of Spirit’s hand win out and his finger slides inside Stein.

The meister breathes in, not a gasp but involuntary for all that, startled by the wash of sensation all across his body. It’s like Spirit’s flooding his body with heat, something between pain and pleasure and mostly  _intense_ , like Stein has lost control of his body and become nothing but a receptor for his nerve endings.  
“Stein?” Spirit asks, voice shaking like his hands are. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Stein says, and processes that Spirit is  _inside_  him and says, “Keep going.”

Spirit pushes in farther and Stein does gasp this time, inhales hard and arches off the bed, and it’s still intense as if all his skin if prickling with electricity and he’s starting to wonder how  _much_  more he can take before all his coherency goes away.

“Good,” he says, and his voice sounds like Spirit’s, cracked by adrenaline into emotion and excitement, and he can’t rein it in so he just keeps going with that fractured tone. “Keep doing that. Push a little bit harder, you’ll want two fingers in a minute and I’ll need to be ready for that.”

Spirit whimpers, and it sounds a little like Stein’s name and a little like delight. Stein smiles and reaches up to touch the weapon’s hair again, and when Spirit slides his finger out and back in, slightly faster than before, Stein’s fingers go tight but the sensation is starting to feel like pleasure, he can feel it pooling warmth low in his stomach like an impending orgasm.

“Okay,” he says, slides his fingers against Spirit’s face. “Try two.”

The second finger is better, goes in faster and hurts less, and Spirit is starting to develop a rhythm and Stein is starting to rock back in time with the weapon’s movements, he’s not certain he could avoid doing so if he tried. Spirit’s hand against his leg isn’t shaking anymore, his fingers are curled to steady the meister in place, and when Spirit speaks his voice is in a lower register than usual, all shadows and want.

“Stein, this -- are you okay?”

Stein can’t look at him, can feel his breathing picking up pace in time with Spirit’s fingers. “Yes, yes, I’m okay.” He sounds like he’s panting, like he can’t breathe for the words.

“I want --” Spirit starts, cuts off short, and Stein knows what he wants, he can feel the thrum of desire hard under his own skin and isn’t sure if it’s his or Spirit’s and is sure that it doesn’t matter. “What do I --”

“Spread your fingers,” Stein says, too fast but that’s okay, Spirit’s acting as fast as he’s speaking and the motion hits something that burns all through Stein’s body so he groans, the sound so clear Spirit doesn’t ask him what’s wrong, just does it again so Stein’s vision blanks out for a moment.

He blinks, and his vision clears, and he looks up at Spirit through the glass of his lenses and says, “Yes, okay,  _enough_ ,” and Spirit slides his fingers free and reaches to slick lube over his cock, but the warm-up is taking too long, it’s too slow. Stein reaches out, knows without looking where Spirit left the bottle, and he sits up as he squeezes liquid over his fingers. Spirit doesn’t protest when he replaces the weapon’s fingers on his cock with his own, just sighs and reaches out to balance himself on Stein’s shoulder, and Stein tucks his forehead into Spirit’s collarbone and shuts his eyes and tries to stay here, in the present instead of the immediate future, pulling his fingers over Spirit’s erection instead of imagining Spirit pulling inside  _him_.

When Spirit whines in a wordless plea Stein doesn’t need clarification, drops back down to the bed even though it takes his hands away from the weapon’s skin. He opens his mouth to offer to turn over, and Spirit’s hands come down on his hips with as much care as if he is made of glass and the sound dies in his throat. Stein goes still, blinks up at the weapon, and Spirit’s eyes are trailing over him slow and heavy, and when he meet the meister’s gaze his face goes gentle. His hands tighten, he leans down to kiss Stein’s shoulder, and he brings his hips forward to slide into his meister.

There is another flare of that sensation prickling, Spirit’s cock is wider than even two fingers were, and Stein makes a choked sound right as Spirit keens as if he’s in  _pain_. Stein gasps air, looks up, and Spirit’s eyes are shut and his mouth is open and Stein’s seen him look like this before, taut from an almost-excess of pleasure, but it’s different like this, with the echo of Spirit’s pleasure brushing against Stein’s spine.

“Spirit,” Stein says, but it comes out as a whisper. “Keep going, Spirit.”

The weapon swallows, inhales, and keeps his eyes shut as he pushes in farther, another inch, maybe two. The friction, even with the lube, drags each motion endlessly long, and Stein is certain that this is enough, the almost-pain turning over into want, pleasure spiking along his skin and echoed by Spirit’s own sensation.

Spirit exhales, shaking, and opens his eyes and they are nothing but blue and when he speaks his voice is all broken into a thousand pieces. “ _Stein_.”

Stein laughs, startling himself with the sound as much as Spirit, and says, “Keep  _going_ ,” rocks his hips up, and Spirit  _finally_  comes the rest of the way forward until his hips come flat against Stein’s legs, and then without being told pulls back before Stein is quite ready for him to.

Spirit sets the rhythm from there, and it’s slower than Stein quite wants but faster than he can quite stand, a little too much and not quite enough, and Spirit’s eyes are open but out-of-focus, locked onto Stein’s shoulder like there’s something there worth looking at. After a few minutes Stein reaches up to touch him, not because he has been able to stop the wild shaking of his hands but because he can’t keep his fingers away, and when his fingers curl against the back of Spirit’s neck they both sigh in perfect synchronization.

“Stein,” Spirit says, choked and broken and perfect perfect perfect. “ _God_ , you’re -- you’re  _amazing_  I -- god I  _love_  you,” and Stein laughs again even though it sounds like a moan coming out, and when he breathes “I love you” too soft to hear Spirit smiles like he hears.

Stein can see the moment Spirit thinks of the meister’s aching erection, the panicked apology over his face, and he starts to say, “It’s fine, I’m fine Spirit, don’t worry,” but he barely makes it past the first reassurance before Spirit’s off-balance fingers close around his cock and he can’t speak, can’t breathe except in time with the movement of Spirit’s hips and Spirit’s hand, and he won’t last and he doesn’t last, comes with his mouth forming the shape of Spirit’s name and his body bleeding into Spirit’s and any distinction between the two as illusory as it always should have been.

Spirit chokes again, almost falls, and when Stein can control his hands he catches the weapon’s waist, holds him steady, and Spirit sucks in air and says, “Stein Stein Stein I I’m going,” before his face tightens in what looks nearly like pain and he thrusts forward, gasps in release, and all the tension in his face evaporates into pleasure.

Stein pulls Spirit down on top of him, brushes a kiss over the weapon’s hair, and lets the other man’s weight press him into the mattress like they’re one and the same. Eventually Spirit slides sideways, pulls away so he can roll onto his side and watch Stein from a more reasonable distance.

“We never got your glasses off,” he observes, reaching out to touch the frames. Stein curls his fingers against the back of Spirit’s neck, just at the top of his spine, and smiles.

“Next time.”

Spirit laughs, soft and strangely shy. “You want to try that again, then?”

“Yes,” Stein says fast. “Yes. Definitely.”

“Did you  _prefer_  it?” Spirit asks, and the emphasis and the look in his eyes speaks of concern.

“Hm.” Stein sounds carefully considering. He looks away and up at the ceiling and tightens his hold on Spirit to pull the weapon down on top of him. “I’m not sure,” the words weighted with consideration. “Once isn’t really at all enough to adequately judge. And I’ll need side-by-side comparisons.”

“ _Stein_ ,” Spirit chastises, but he’s laughing, and the sound makes Stein smile even as he goes on.

“We’ll have to have  _plenty_  of experimental data before I could make a declaration one way or the other. Unless you’re  _protesting_  the scientific method.”

“I would never, Stein,” Spirit murmurs against the meister’s chest, and Stein reaches over with his other hand to press the weapon closer closer closer.

“I love you,” his mouth forms against Spirit’s hair, although he doesn’t quite vocalize. He can feel Spirit’s lips shifting over his skin, knows what the weapon is saying, and smiles up at the ceiling through a haze of warmth.


	9. Extra Scene: Permission

It’s always easy to tell when Spirit is nervous about something. The weapon has a hundred tells, in the speed of his voice and the fidgeting of his hands and the awkward angle of his body, but it’s easiest to see it in the way he doesn’t quite meet Stein’s gaze, looks at the meister’s mouth or hair or shoulder rather than directly at his face. And, of course, there’s the tension all through his body; even when Stein’s mouth is against his the weapon’s shoulders are tense and awkward and he’s not quite relaxing like he usually does.

Stein has intended to let Spirit bring up whatever is making him jumpy in his own time, but it’s been almost an entire day now, and sometimes with Spirit it’s better to pull it out of him. So after taking a minute to pull the weapon’s shirt free and get a sigh of satisfaction from him -- even on edge, Spirit is intensely responsive -- Stein leans back from Spirit’s mouth and catches his gaze.

“What do you want, Spirit?”

He can feel the weapon tense under his fingers, and this close the shift of his gaze away like Stein’s eyes are impossible to watch is unmistakable. It’s hard to look at anything  _else_ , but Spirit manages it and fixes his eyes on Stein’s hair instead. He promptly follows this up by a denial so weak his voice is shaking with the panic.

“What -- what are you talking about?”

“Spirit.” Stein leans in, since Spirit won’t look at him directly, and presses his lips against the weapon’s hairline. “You’ve been jumpy all day.” He slides his fingers up higher, pulling the edge of Spirit’s shirt with it, and Spirit’s shiver is entirely divorced from any sense of cold. “Just  _tell_  me.”

“Well, it’s not  _telling_  you so much as --” Spirit’s words fail as Stein’s fingers come sideways to skim across his waist. Stein smiles against Spirit’s hair, where the weapon can’t see him, and moves his mouth to brush over jawline instead.

“Tell, ask, order, whatever it is.” He pulls gently and the weapon shifts in without thinking to press closer. After a moment his arms come around Stein’s neck so he can tangle his fingers into silver hair, and Stein shuts his eyes and smiles and waits.

There is the space of a breath, then another, and then Spirit takes a deep inhale and his jittery tension firms into the solidity of resolve.

“You remember the conversation we had one of those first days?”

“Your specificity, as always, is breathtaking,” Stein laughs against the weapon’s shoulder. “I’m sure I do, though a little more clarification would be helpful.”

“About -- you cutting me.”

“Ah.” Stein’s hand comes sideways involuntarily to find the faint edges of straight-line scars over Spirit’s stomach. “Yes.”

“You have my permission.”

Spirit says the words like they’re a confession, and even with the perfect clarity of the memory it takes Stein a minute to play back through the conversation and pull out the relevant part. Then he has it, and he’s pulling back from Spirit’s skin to stare at the weapon’s face.  _Now_  Spirit’s looking at him, chin tipped down and looking up through his hair like he’s flinching back from Stein’s reaction, and his eyes are perfectly blue and perfectly clear and perfectly sincere.

Stein still has to ask, though. “Are you  _serious_?”

Spirit laughs and drops his gaze down to his feet. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”

“That is an excellent point,” Stein has to admit. His mind has gone perfectly blank, echoingly still, like the import of the words still hasn’t quite sunk in, but he can feel Spirit fidget where he stands so he comes back in to turn up the weapon’s chin and kiss away his self-consciousness, and it is  _then_  that the full possibilities hit him. Cutting Spirit without his permission is one thing. Leaving a pattern of scars to prove that he is  _Stein’s_ , to prove that the meister had an effect regardless of Spirit’s desire for such -- it is not that Stein  _regrets_  this, exactly, but the lack of such is only because even now with all the clarity of hindsight he can’t see his past self doing anything differently. But the intimacy of it still makes him shiver when he traces the faded lines now, and to have Spirit  _offer_  it to him…

Stein’s hands are going tight against Spirit’s body, pushing him back so the weapon stumbles backward until he hits the nearest wall and Stein can hold him steady while he traces a path across the other man’s collar with his tongue. Spirit is laughing, unsteady with fading nerves but sincere as he somehow always is, and his fingers are digging into Stein’s hair with all the grace they usually exhibit.

“I’m glad you don’t mind,” the weapon is saying, and Stein would pull back if he still could but if he shuts his eyes he can’t tell where his mouth ends and Spirit begins, and he can’t force himself to retreat from that. Instead he half-shakes his head and says, “Why on  _earth_  would you think I would  _mind_?” as he brings his hand back to its former location under the weapon’s shirt.

“I just --” Spirit starts, but when he pauses Stein jumps in to fill the gap that the weapon won’t be able to.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re sure?”

“I said I was.”

“Okay.” Stein opens his mouth against Spirit’s neck, scrapes his teeth against skin in not-quite-a-bite so Spirit breathes in shaky. “How attached are you to this shirt?”

There is a pause. Stein can almost see the thoughts in Spirit’s head, the first wave of confusion turning into rapid-fire consideration before snapping into understanding just as the weapon says, “ _Oh_. Not. I mean. I have others, it’s no big deal. If -- something happened to it.”

“Oh good. I won’t have to apologize then.”

Spirit starts to laugh and Stein hooks his fingers around the weapon’s belt and steps back. “Come on,” he orders, pulling Spirit forward by his hold as he starts down the hallway. The other man does, following so fast there’s not even any tension in Stein’s pull and they are almost tripping over each other’s feet.

They don’t have far to go to get to the lab proper, but Spirit is failing to keep his hands to himself so Stein’s movement is less fluid than it would be due to the fingers trailing against his neck and reaching for his shirt as the weapon half-falls forward. He does manage to keep himself focused until they make it past the door to the lab itself, though they are barely into the room before he’s twisting back into Spirit’s touch, dropping his hold to grab the weapon’s face and steady him for a kiss. Spirit steps in over the nonexistent distance between them, arches his back to press closer, and his hands are still against hair and he is panting against Stein’s mouth. When the meister’s thumb comes down he can feel the race of Spirit’s pulse in the soft skin under his ear, thrumming fast with adrenaline in time with the uneven pace of his breath against Stein’s mouth.

There is a moment of unfocused motion, hands and mouths catching at skin and breath and clothes, and then Stein recollects himself and shifts his hands away from Spirit’s hair and neck to grab at the front of the weapon’s shirt instead. When he pulls at the fabric the other man moves with it without resisting, nearly falling forward before he catches himself on Stein’s shoulders to expedite his movement from the entry to the actual operation table itself. Stein pushes him sideways and backwards until they both run into the edge of the table and half-fall back so Spirit is mostly on the table and Stein is mostly on Spirit.

Spirit is laughing as they go down, and as Stein pulls back his reaction forms into coherent words. “Remember the last time we were in here together?”

“Of course I remember,” Stein responds, quick and sharp, but his mind is still racing with possibilities and how could Spirit think he doesn’t  _remember_. He straightens and turns away from the table itself. “You had quite a fever, actually, I’m surprised  _you_  do.”

“Like I would let something like a fever stop me remembering every moment of you kissing me.” Spirit’s voice is closer than it should be, and as Stein turns with a scalpel in hand Spirit is right behind him, reaching out to hook his fingers around the high collar of the meister’s shirt and pulling it down to kiss the skin thus exposed. Stein shifts backwards half a step to stabilize his balance and keeps the cutting edge away from Spirit but otherwise doesn’t protest.

“You were a mess,” Stein observes against Spirit’s hair. “Bruises head to toe. I assume, at least. I only saw part of them.”

“You could have found out.” Even muffled by cloth and skin Spirit’s voice is smoky with invitation. Stein smiles at the sound.

“That wouldn’t have been very considerate of me. Taking advantage of your injuries to proposition you?”

“I wouldn’t have said no.” Spirit comes up and his eyes are as bad as his voice, half-lidded and catching against Stein’s mouth like it’s a magnet.

“I know,” Stein says, and shoves back against Spirit’s shoulder hard enough that the weapon stumbles back to his original position. The meister comes forward as fast as Spirit goes back, grabbing a handful of his shirt to save him from falling flat onto the table. “That’s why I didn’t ask.”

The scalpel goes through the shirt like it’s not there at all, tearing the fibers in a perfectly straight line from shoulder to hem. Spirit flinches back from the edge before Stein follows the line of the cut with a trailing path of his finger against the exposed skin and earns himself a gasp.

“I’m asking now,” he goes on as he pulls the blade sideways across the shirtfront. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” The shirt is coming to pieces, outline disintegrating into trailing ends as it comes open over the existing scars on Spirit’s chest. Stein can see the weapon breathing fast, and when he looks up Spirit is staring at him wide-eyed and panting.

“I said I was sure,” he says again, before Stein can ask, and the words are breathy but clear. The meister shuts his mouth around his unspoken question and looks back down at one of the scars tracing straight across the weapon’s stomach. For a minute neither of them moves or speaks; there is just Spirit leaning against the edge of the operating table, tension in the fingers curled against the edge, and Stein with his hand against the weapon’s hip and the other still holding the scalpel.

Then Stein lets go his hold, reaches out to run his finger across the outline of that scar, and Spirit shivers like the touch is fire. The movement shifts his skin but Stein’s hands are perfectly steady. He replaces his hold against Spirit’s hip, says, “Hold still,” and brings his other hand up to follow the same path with more force.

Spirit’s hiss of reaction is delayed, happens a second after Stein feels the scalpel break the skin. Spirit’s fingers go tight against the table and he sucks in a breath, but when Stein looks up his eyes are shut and his lips are parted, and when Stein asks, “Spirit?” he licks his lower lip and says, “That almost didn’t even hurt.”

“It’s a very sharp edge,” Stein says, eyes drawing down to the thin line of red against Spirit’s skin. He reaches out to touch the color and Spirit shudders and inhales and it’s not quite pain and it’s not quite pleasure, and Stein’s fingers come away stained. He brings them to his mouth without thinking and licks so his tongue floods with metallic burn, still watching the fingerprints against that cut, and when he looks up Spirit’s eyes are open. The weapon is staring at his mouth and his cheeks are flushing red and Stein can’t tell if it’s intrigue or revulsion or arousal in his eyes. Then Spirit reaches out for Stein’s shoulder without looking away and pulls the meister in to press his mouth to Stein’s. Spirit tastes like chocolate and Stein tastes like blood, and Stein doesn’t know what it must be like for Spirit but the combination on his tongue is like fire in his veins.

Then Spirit leans back, reaches out for Stein’s occupied hand and pulls it in closer. “Again,” he murmurs against Stein’s mouth, and Stein makes a noise of shock in the back of his throat that makes Spirit laugh. The weapon leans back as Stein does so the meister can see what he’s doing, and his fingers are looser on the edge of the table, and this time when Stein brushes the metal against the old scars Spirit shivers and his mouth comes open and  _that_  sound Stein recognizes from the last time Spirit was here and arching up against Stein’s mouth.

Stein exhales deliberately slow in an attempt to steady his heartrate but the exhale itself stutters in his throat, and Spirit laughs low and shaky before the edge breaks past his skin again and the laughter turns into a hissing moan. This time Stein’s fingers are against the cut almost as soon as it is made, and he drags up and across, leaving a trail of red behind the movement of his fingers over Spirit’s skin. The weapon starts laughing again and arches his back to press against Stein’s touch, and Stein whimpers and has to come in to press a kiss against Spirit’s collarbone. Spirit tips his head and exhales hard when Stein’s tongue pulls over the dip between his shoulder and collar, harder when the meister traces his skin with his free hand and adds a third diagonal cut along the path he outlined with his thumb.

“ _God_ , Spirit,” he manages to say, though his face is against the skin of the weapon’s shoulder so Spirit can’t see the way his expression is crumbling out of his control. “ _Really_?”

Spirit rocks his hips forward to grind against Stein’s leg by answer and the meister’s unoccupied hand closes tight on his waist. He drops the scalpel in his other hand, shoves so it will slide away out of their range, and as soon as his fingers are free he’s working at the buckle of Spirit’s pants, twisting the clasp free one-handed before managing the button and zipper with the speed of much recent experience. Spirit doesn’t try to help, just maintains his grip against the metal of the table to hold himself steady while Stein gets his pants open. Then the meister’s fingers close around Spirit’s cock, and Spirit gasps and his head drops back so Stein can kiss at his throat as well as his shoulder. One of the weapon’s hands comes up to Stein’s hair to hold him in place, although the meister has no intention of going anywhere, not when Spirit is making the  _sounds_  he’s making.

“Stein,” he gasps without bringing his head down, “Fuck, Stein, I --” He interrupts whatever he was going to say with a whimper as the meister shifts his hand and pulls faster, and Stein laughs.

“I wanted to do this so badly when we were partners,” he says, and Spirit’s fingers grip tighter in his hair.

“I would say you should have, but I can’t speak for past me,” Spirit manages. “At least you’re --” He chokes on the words and has to take a breath before he goes on. “At least you’re making up for it now.”

“Mm,” Stein hums, and angles his hand again, just to feel the way Spirit’s fingers jerk and tremble against his neck.

Stein can’t be sure if his own attention is getting lost in the heat of the moment or if Spirit was farther along than he expected when they started, but it doesn’t seem like long at all before the weapon’s hold is going desperate with tension and he starts to pant for breath, murmuring Stein’s name over and over like it’s a plea and a moan and thanks all at once. Stein pulls Spirit in closer by his hip and traces his tongue against the line of the weapon’s neck, and Spirit brings his chin down and his fingers go gentle against Stein’s skin and he moans low in his throat and jerks in Stein’s hand as he comes.

Stein insists on anesthetic after, once he gets Spirit disentangled from him and flat on the operating table. It’s not enough to knock the weapon out entirely but plenty to let him ramble semi-incoherently while Stein sets neat rows of stitches across the three cuts.

“What ‘bout you?” Spirit asks, sitting up and stretching to touch the meister’s shoulder, and Stein has to reach out to push him back to lie flat on the table before he can continue working.

“Next time, Spirit.” He can’t explain that this was enough, more than enough, that having Spirit conscious and willing and moaning under his touch is more than his younger self ever expected to have. It’s still more than he can always believe now, even with Spirit languid and smiling up at him and humming with satisfaction under his touch. It’s getting easier, though, so he smiles and strokes Spirit’s hair and repeats “Next time,” because he is starting to see a future bright and glowing and perfect.


	10. Extra Scene: Screw

“What does it  _do_?”

Spirit is speaking softly in deference to Stein’s current state, which is as close to asleep as the weapon ever sees him. Stein’s head is in Spirit’s lap, arms linked loosely around his waist, and his eyes are shut while he hums at Spirit’s fingers sliding through his hair. At this angle Spirit can see the scarring patterning the base of the screw through Stein’s head, can run his fingers across the metal warmed to just below normal body heat by Stein’s blood.

“Clears my thoughts,” Stein says without opening his eyes.

“How, though?” Spirit runs one finger down the groove in the middle of the screw itself while his other hand combs through the meister’s shaggy silver hair.

“Hm,” Stein offers in reaction to the hand in his hair, smiling at the contact. “It resets everything. Jumbles up the thought patterns I’m stuck on so I can refocus.”

“I never see you turn it anymore.” Spirit’s voice is very soft.

Stein’s response is just as steady and quiet. “I don’t need to reset as much.”

Spirit knows what the answer will be, but he asks anyway. ‘Why?”

Stein opens one eye to look up at Spirit and raises an eyebrow. “Why do you think?”

Spirit smiles in admission of the hit and goes back to playing with Stein’s hair. The meister closes his eye again, humming occasionally. At the angle he is across Spirit’s lap it feels a little like he’s purring with the sound.

Eventually Spirit’s curiosity gets the better of him and he speaks again. “What did you  _do_ , though? Or  _how_?”

Stein smiles without opening his eyes before sighing, and when he speaks his voice has taken on the undertones of a lecture. “It was right after. When I thought I had killed you.” He sounds perfectly, oddly calm, given the subject, but his hold on Spirit goes tighter for a minute. “I couldn’t -- I couldn’t think about anything else. My Madness was worse too, as bad as it’s ever been until the Kishin’s revival. I had to lock myself in the lab; I’m not sure what I would have done if I was loose. I did some damage to myself before I thought of the solution.” He lets go to touch the end of the screw to clarify but keeps talking. “I understand there was a significant of my blood across the lab when the first person -- Marie -- found me.” He sounds calm, still, but Spirit’s hands have gone still and he’s glad Stein’s not looking at him because he doesn’t know what sort of appalled horror is across his face.

The meister goes on, like he’s explaining a perfectly reasonable next step. “Once I had the idea for the screw it was a matter of sketching out the design and confirming that the hypothesis was solid. That took some time but I don’t think I slept at all until after Marie arrived, so it was probably less than a day of design.” He shrugs one-shouldered, still with his eyes shut. “I had completed the surgery by the time she came in.”

“But  _how_  did you manage it?” Spirit’s voice is low and shocked but he can’t regulate it, and Stein doesn’t react to the tone at all.

“Sufficient preparation and a lack of concern for survivability.”

Spirit flinches, pulls Stein’s head in close against his chest and curls over the meister before he can make himself relax his protective pose. “ _God_ , Stein, I can’t --” He can’t finish his sentence, isn’t sure what he wants to say.

Stein rolls onto his back and opens his eyes to blink up at the weapon’s face. He smiles gently, reaches up to brush Spirit’s cheek with his fingertips. “I thought I had  _killed_  you, Spirit. I didn’t know until Marie told me that you were going to  _live_. It was the best solution at the time; I either attempted the surgery, possibly dying in the process, or stayed as I was without you and lost myself to Madness.”

“I’m --” Stein is brushing away tears, Spirit realizes. He hadn’t even known he was crying. “I’m not that  _important_ , Stein.”

“To me you are.” Stein says it like it’s an explanation for everything. “You always have been.” He smiles wider, bright and sharp for a moment. “I gather most people don’t trust in others for their sanity, but I’ve never deluded myself into thinking I was most people.”

Spirit laughs at that, even if the sound is damp and shaky. “No, you’re not.” He leans back, tries to let the pointless past-tense panic ease from between his shoulderblades. “I had no idea. I thought you were  _fine_.”

“I don’t know who would have told you otherwise.” Stein turns sideways again and shuts his eyes once more. “We were valuable students, even separated. Lord Death wanted to keep you stable and the best way to do that was to not tell you about me.”

“He should have!” Spirit starts, but Stein cuts him off by sliding his fingers up along the weapon’s spine.

“He didn’t. And you were fine.”

“ _You_  weren’t.”

“I was eventually. I am now.” Stein smiles again, comes forward to kiss Spirit’s stomach, and the weapon can’t really argue with that.

There is another pause before Spirit speaks again, carefully calm this time and deliberately shifting the subject. “So it -- resets your thoughts?”

“Yes. Usually when I needed to focus on the present and not the past. You were more of a distraction when you  _weren’t_  there than when you were.”

Spirit curls his fingers around the end of the screw, tries to imagine adult Stein without it, without the curving stitches across his face. For a moment he has it, childhood memories aged up, but then the image vanishes under the weight of reality. He’s not even sure it’s a loss, the hypothetical undamaged Stein instead of the actual one, marked with scars and weighted with history like Spirit himself is. At least they match, this way.

“What would happen if I turned it?” he asks, idly setting his fingers against the metal.

Stein’s eyebrows go up. “I don’t know. I suspect the effect would be similar to my own action, but no one else has ever asked before. Others seem to find it alarming.” He smiles, lopsided and darkly amused. “I have  _no_  idea why.”

“Can I?”

Stein laughs. “Sure. Clockwise. It shouldn’t be  _able_  to turn the other way but it’s best to not risk it.”

Spirit cringes at the idea, almost retracts his request, but curiosity is getting the better of him. He steadies his grip, committing to the motion, and after triple-checking which way clockwise is, slowly turns the metal.

Stein convulses against him, his hands going tight against Spirit’s skin, and groans hard against the weapon’s skin. Spirit lets go instantly, reaches out to Stein’s shoulder and face as panic floods through him. “Oh my god, Stein, Stein are you okay, oh my god what did I  _do_  are you  _okay_?”

Stein is speaking as fast as Spirit can panic, though, although his hands are still pressing flat against the weapon’s back. “It’s fine, I’m  _fine_  you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Oh my god what  _happened_?”

“It --” Stein takes a deep breath, careful and controlled, and when he sighs the tension lining his face smoothes enough that Spirit can recognize the pleasure in his expression. The weapon has a moment of stunned realization that corresponds precisely with Stein’s deliberately steady words. “It was  _amazing_ , Spirit, do it again.”

“ _What_?” Spirit hasn’t -- well. He  _has_  seen Stein like this before, a handful of times in that first week, but not  _regularly_. Usually the meister is somewhat controlled, maintains some sort of self-awareness, but now he is pressed against Spirit and  _panting_  for breath and this is  _not_  the way this usually goes, at least not while Spirit himself is still in a condition to observe rationally.

“That felt  _fantastic_ ,” Stein says again.

“Really?” Spirit reaches out, sets his fingers back where they were with as much care as if he is touching a bomb. “You’re  _sure_?”

Stein laughs, and the sound is relaxed and breathy and it is  _weird_  to hear Stein laugh like a normal person. “ _Yes_.”

Stein’s reaction isn’t as violent the second time; either Spirit is expecting it or Stein is braced for it, but either way the meister is largely still. His fingers do shift involuntarily against Spirit’s back, though, and he groans low and satisfied against the weapon.

“What does it  _feel_  like?” Spirit has to ask. “I thought you said it just -- jumbled your thoughts.

Stein takes a minute to collect himself before he answers. “It’s -- it’s still resetting everything like it usually does, but --” He pauses, swallows. “It’s -- there’s nothing else, for a minute, except the feel of your hand. There’s just nothing at all in my head except for you and me for a moment and it’s --”

“Amazing,” Spirit finishes for him, and Stein smiles and hums again. “You make it sound orgasmic.”

“It is,” Stein answers instantly. “You should do this all the time.”

Spirit laughs. “I’ll make a habit of it.”

“ _Good_.” Stein stretches so the muscles across his bare back pull tight for a moment before curling in again into a tighter loop around Spirit. “Keep touching my hair.”

Spirit laughs, and does.


End file.
